Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Whole Week, Without a Blog Entry?!

I started this blog a little over a month ago and at first could hardly contain myself. Once I finished a post I quickly wanted to post something else. I am willing to bet this is a common feeling amongst many bloggers. Full disclosure I love to write and thought writing blogs was a good way to stretch my mental muscle. I fully admit that there is a great deal of garbage when it comes to online content & the LAST thing I want, is to be lumped into that category. So let's see if I can't make some useful suggestions to my readership.

The obvious one is "have something meaningful to say." Just because you think it is interesting doesn't mean other people will want to read about it. To that end, target the distribution of your blog to people who would care. Writing an article about telecom and distributing it to my friends in the baseball community wont do me much good. So knowing your audience is important.

Listen to your readers. Answer questions and comments about your blog, use that information to create your next entry. If someone thought enough to comment, thank them (even if you don't like or agree) and use that info for the greater good. Blogs can be about advocating an agenda. But if your goal is to gain potential clients, don't write about how awesome your company is. Instead, it is important to relay as much useful and relevant information (about your industry) as possible. Over time this will translate to customers because people will begin to regard you as an expert in your industry and they will refer you business.

Timely blogs are very important. If something BIG has effected your industry, blogging about it early and with useful commentary will go a long way towards improving readership and give people the impression you are on the cutting edge. In the spirit of that, Please be sure to check out the NRG Summit and Trade Show April 15ht at the Pikesville Hilton in Maryland. www.networkreferralgroup.com

Cross promoting others is a great way to get new exposure for you as well.

So here is the summary

Meaningful content, listen to readers to create new content, be timely and cross promote when possible

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @selflessnetwork

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Where to Network and Why?

My first reader request! On my last blog one of my readers asked me to write about finding the right network group. This is a fascinating topic, so I am going to run down some of the decision criteria that can help you pick a group.

Location, Location, Location. This may seem like an obvious one but consider these items. Does the group meet near your office or where you live? You want to reduce windshield time whenever possible. Does the group meet within your territory? If your company has assigned you a specific place to grow business, choosing a group central to that territory can be a key advantage.

Chamber of Commerce & Association Vs a pure leads group. I think both are valuable. A chamber or association is much more about building long term relationships.  Getting immediate gratification  (meaning, turning fellow members into customers) is the exception, it's not the rule. These organizations will often give you opportunities for leadership and other high level exposure in the community. You will often have the opportunity to host or sponsor an event and really put your name out in that community. Also, many people who join a chamber quickly learn that certain chamber members will ONLY do business with other chamber members. As for a pure leads group you need to visit several to see if you fit in. Not just from a personality standpoint but is the group made up of complimentary industry people? As a telecom rep I like groups that have IT vendors, and  Web design people. Also, is your business B2B or is it B2C? Does the group membership reflect that? NEVER join a group thinking you can sell to membership. If you don't understand why, please read my last blog post. It may be important to visit the group 2 or 3 times. Does it have a good flow? Does the leader keep things under control. Does it seem like every one is giving out leads or is it one person giving out all the names? Does it look like some people in the group write down every name or do they ask for permission to contact someone when the lead was not given directly to them?

Time Commitment. Most leads groups will meet once a week or every other week. Some of these groups consider attendance mandatory. This can be a big time commitment but it also allows you to build strong relationships within the group. The local chamber may only have 2 or 3 events each month and attendance may represent a small percentage of membership. It could take much longer to meet all of membership and build those relationships.

Money: how much does it cost to be a member? Here is a tip, with very few exceptions, free groups don't last long and often are not very successful. Doesn't mean hat can't be, just means they usually aren't. So consider the annual cost first. Then, do they regularly hold events that require additional out of pocket expense ( meals, drinks etc) do they have trade shows periodically and how much is it to participate as a guest or to have a display table.

Perhaps the most important advice I can give you is commit your time and energy. It generally takes 6-12 months for a group to really show it's value and be sure to be active. The more you participate and help others, the more you will get back.

So here is summary: location, group type, time commitment and costs associated with. Whatever you choose give it 6-12 months and give it your all.

Thanks for reading today.

Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Monday, March 21, 2011

Some People Just Don't Get It

I spend a lot of time networking. People ask me all the time "Mike, how do you find the time?" quite frankly, it's my job. Now to be clear, my job is not networking. My job is to find new customers. Networking is the means to that end. I am the first to admit that networking is not for everyone. There are plenty of people that don't get it and probably don't want to. I know lots of people that call networking "notworking." So I wanted to go over some key factors for effective networking.

Networking, like sales is listening twice as much as you talk. Put simply, if you are in a networking group or you go to a meeting NEVER go in with the goal of selling to the membership. That is a perk if it happens. You join a group or attend an event to make connections that can lead you to a customer. When you meet someone ask them questions like "what service does your company offer?" don't ask them what they do, you will never get a useful answer. I've written before about having an effective elevator pitch and most people don't, so you will need to coax some information out of them. another good question is "what companies or industries have you recently sold to?" The last question I recommend is "what are some key words I might hear a customer say that would indicate they are a good customer for you?" Now here comes the hard part.... Shut up and listen. You are listening to learn and you are listening to gauge this person's expertise level. They may be in a complimentary industry but may be a novice and not really a good partner for you. They may be a seasoned pro and have an extensive network and you may be in over your head. But most important, listen to see if they have what it takes to collaborate. Given the chance, do they try to sell you or the company you work for? Are they overbearing or easy going? Do they mesh with you sales approach. do they volunteer to help you first All good stuff to evaluate for future opportunities.?

Networking, like sales  requires good follow up. I like to follow up with people by inviting them to connect on Linkedin. If they don't have an account I will send a brief e-mail to introduce myself and offer to help them set up an acct. Good networking is all about helping others. The more you help others the more they will think to recommend you,. You MUST resist the temptation to try and sell them, even if they are your ideal customer. Now if they say "hey Mike, we need help from someone like you" Then go for it. Otherwise, at this stage you are still building a relationship built on trust and mutual goodwill. When I connect with someone my message is simple. " Great meeting you today, I look forward to collaborating with you." Now, you will again sit back and wait for a response. If they are enthusiastic then offer to meet them for coffee or lunch and share some contact information. Otherwise, just add them to your network as a resource.


Don't selfishly prospect. If you see a name and they aren' t a good prospect for you are they a good prospect for one of your connections? I would say every time I go looking for business that I come across  an opportunity for one of my connections. When I send them that random message it's like their Birthday came early. The genuine gratitude that comes out of a referral like that is palpable, you can feel it.

All of these tips lead to the #1 key of networking. When you come across a good opportunity, you need to research who the contacts are and who you know in common. Many of my sales come from finding the right someone on linkedin and then contacting their mutual connection for an introduction. Cant tell you how many times I have reached out to a connection and they told me "sure Mike, glad to do it." Or I called a prospective customer and mentioned our mutual connection and they said "normally, I don't take such calls but if you are friends with 'fill in the blank' then I will talk to you." That is the power of networking

Networking is not easy, it is time consuming, but it beats the pants off of cold calling. So here is the summary:

Listen twice as much as you speak.

Follow up and engage the people you meet.

Build a foundation of trust and comfort.

Name drop whenever possible.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

BTW, follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Telecom Landscape Since 1998

 I had a meeting with a potential client the other day and he asked me how my prices can be less than the phone company, "how do you make money Mike?" He wasn't the first person to ever ask me this question and I doubt he will be the last so I thought it a good idea to talk a little about how this industry works.

The place to start would be the Telcom Act of 1998. Without bogging down in details, the United States government passed a law requiring the local Bell operators to allow access to their network so that other companies can compete. So lets do a couple quick Definitions: RBOC, Regional Bell Operating Carrier. In short the country has "territories" assigned to specific providers. Here on the east coast we have Verizon that is our RBOC. The west coast is mostly At&t and you also have Qwest filling out some of the west coast and parts of the Midwest. This is important because in these areas that specific RBOc is responsible for being the phone company. They have specific tariffed pricing and they are required to provide some sort of service to virtually every location in their territory. You will also see them referred to as the ILEC, the Incumbent  Local Exchange Carrier. This second name is much more common and has greater relevance because every one else is considered a CLEC a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. To add another layer, Verizon can be the ILEC on the east coast and can operate as a CLEC everywhere else. Confused? good... Now we can proceed.


Now to be clear, before 1998 it was not "illegal" to offer services in competition to the RBOC, it was just a real pain in the neck. If you wanted to offer someone service you would have to build your own separate network ( permits, tearing up the streets, buying fiber and gear etc) and after all that was done the RBOC still "owned" all the phone numbers. So the telecom act was important because it allowed other companies the right to access the RBOCs network and then rent space to set up their routing and switching equipment. This was a much lower cost and efficient route for creating a network and servicing customers.

So here is a quick rundown of how things are mapped out. You first start with a LATA: Local Area & Transport Area. This tends to be a large chunk of a given state and covers what appears to be a fairly random coverage area. Looking at a LATA map is not unlike looking at a map of your state. For the most part, no clear straight lines. Then each LATA has many central offices that services specific areas. Think of a central office or C/O as a county within your state,. Again, somewhat random but they are static (for the most part).

 "Why is all of this important to me as a telecom customer Mike?" on the day to day stuff, it isn't. But if you ever consider moving or opening a new office a whole host of things come into play. First, is that these C/O's and LATA's all service specific areas and specific phone numbers. Depending on your provider of choice this can mean paying a premium to use certain numbers. Let's say your office is in the heart of a major metro city and you are moving to a business park just outside of city proper. There is a very good chance that you moved to an area served by a different C/O and possibly even a different LATA. Faced with this you may have to A) pay a premium to keep you phone numbers or B) choose another provider altogether.

Lets adress A) first. when you move from one central office to another  the RBOC will charge you a foreign exchange fee as a premium on top of your basic line charges. The main reason for this is the calls are still being routed through the old C/O and their are costs associated with routing all in and outbound calls through two C/O's instead of one.
As for option B)  the CLEC's offer very competitive pricing but they are also very specific in their service areas. So while your current provider may do a lot of business downton they may not have built their network to service the suburban area you moved to because there were not enough business opportunities to justify installing gear in that specific C/O. In other words, CLEC's are normally built on a porfit model to determine where they can make the most money with the least amount of equipment.

In some ways the industry has come full circle. The RBOCS were promised (via the Telecom act) to be able to sell long distance service again, a feature taken from them in the early 80's when Ma Bell was broken up and the Baby bells or RBOCs cam into existence. So now your local phone company can offer you local & long distance on one bill from one carrier. In addition, many enterprise level companies have grown tired of dealing with the RBOC's for their needs and are now looking to nationwide level CLECs to bring fiber directly to their place of business, thus bypassing the RBOCs and giving them truly one company to deal with. For the SMB customer you are going to deal primarily with the RBOC and a regional niche CLEC that offers all services to a very specific C/O or C/o's within  a Specific LATA or small cluster of LATA's.  There are some exceptions to these rules. The cable companies have created both SMB and enterprise level telephone and data solutions that target specific regions and bypass the RBOCs. In response, many of the RBOCs have initiated products to cut into the TV market of the cable companies.

All seems rather cannibalistic... dontcha think?


Thanks for reading today,

Mike Shelah

BTW, follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Cracking "The Inner Circle"

I recently started doing research on a restaurant franchise in Baltimore. There was an article in the paper about ownership buying some property in northern Baltimore and opening another branch of their highly successful franchise. This is the perfect opportunity for me and I know there will be a need for my services. I made several attempts to find the right person to speak with but had no luck. I mentioned this to a business partner of mine who said they had recently met someone from that company and gave me their contact info. This person was kind enough to inform me that she was not the right person but gave me the phone number and email of the right person. There is just one problem with this, I had already spoken to the right person and she hung up on me saying she didn't need anything. So I went back to the drawing board. Armed with the knowledge that I have the right person I looked to see if we had any common ground, and we did. We both know the owner of a Baltimore media company. I had connected with her through an article on Networking in SMART CEO magazine from 2010. I sent her a message indicating what I was trying to do and what my luck had been so far. Her response was very interesting. First, she told me that she was good friends with this contact and that she was NOT surprised I had such a tough time. She said the entire company operates that way, it is part of their culture. She did agree to forward my information on to her friend and said hopefully that would help.

So here is my question: HOW ON EARTH DOES THAT MENTALITY HELP YOUR COMPANY?

Look, I'm not naive, I realize that there are thousands of sales people out there and many of them are A) not very good at what they do and B) are unethical but,  consider the following:

1. It is almost impossible for you, as a business owner to know everything you need to make your company thrive. By building trusted relationships with people in fields you are not expert in, you can really drive the success of your company. So your immediate retort to this one is "okay Mister Smarty pants, how do you know they don't already have a relationship like that?" The answer is, I don't know. Y'know why I don't know? Because they couldn't take 60 seconds to speak to me get a handle on what I do and then determine if they could use my help or not. Next up "well yeah Mike, if they did that they would spend all day on the telephone talking to sales people." Not true, it's just an excuse. I cannot tell you how many hour long meetings I have been in where the customers phone did not ring once. In addition, I work for a small company where the owners office is right behind mine. In a given week, I might hear five calls come through from sales people.

2. Zig Ziglar said "you have two ears and one mouth so you need to listen twice as much as you speak." That's not just good advice for sales people but business owners too. You don't know what you don't know. So until you start listening and paying attention you are going out to miss out on key opportunities to make your business more productive.

3. Stop sending the minions out to gather information and then taking all of their information to make your decision. Either trust them to make the decision for you or do the homework yourself. Here is why. The ideal sale is a a mutual agreement between two people who have identified a need and developed a solution that fits the criteria of that need. When you add another layer you open the opportunity for that layer to cause confusion of for something important to the decision maker to be overlooked in the solution discovery process. I have worked on dozens of clients where I never met the person who signed the paperwork until long after the sale was done and they were angry about how a particular part of the product or service was handled.

I really hope you have a good relationship with ownership and when you read this, will immediately forward this to them and say "this guy has some really good points." For some reason that has never been clear to me, many sales transactions end up being a very adversarial process where the customer and the rep seem to be at odds with one another as opposed to working together. Again, I understand that there are many sales people out there who are just idiots. Politely excuse yourself from them and move on to someone you feel comfortable with. In fact, work with 2 or 3 someones you feel comfortable with and then work openly with all of them & then let the best solution win. The better sales people will recognize when a competitor solution just does the job better than theirs. Most of the time one sales rep will uncover something that the other two didn't or the customer wont put emphasis on something important to them but it just happens to be a feature that one company is focusing on right now. So while the other companies can provide the same thing or perhaps a better version of the same thing, the customer never finds out & then makes an uninformed decision.

Let's be clear, uninformed decisions never benefit the customer and almost always leave the customer and the sales rep at odds with one another.

Here's the summary,
Get rid of the "inner circle" mentality.
Listen twice as much as you speak.
Do the research yourself or trust your team to take care of it for you.

Create an open and honest dialogue with the potential companies you want to do business with.

Thanks for reading today


Mike S.

BTW, follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Monday, March 7, 2011

When did "You're Welcome" become "No Problem"

The English language is a a goofy one to say the least. It has no true roots, instead it takes little bits and pieces from all over the planet. So the rules to our language can be difficult to navigate and even the most knowledgeable people of its grammar will make huge blunders ( I am including myself in that group, mostly the blunders part). So I wanted to touch on some of these substitute words and phrases.

Let's start with "No Problem." often this is the response when people say "thank you." What problem? Who said there was a problem? I was just trying to thank you for doing something for me, no problem implied. But now that the other person has implied there is a  problem. This is a very simple but profound example of how words choice can affect the intended meaning of your statement.

Here's a quick one: irregardless. Stop saying that. regardless already covers the meaning. It's annoying.

Speaking of annoying. We all know someone that will "overuse" a specific word or phrase. I have a friend who is a very good salesman but he cannot get through a paragraph without saying "the bottom line." I understand he is trying to underline or punctuate a particular portion of his statement, but when it is used 3 or 4 times in a single conversation it loses its power and also indicates a lack of intelligence, it's subtle but W. Clement Stone once said  " a little hinge will swing a big door."

Here is another subliminal one "well, to be honest with you..." what?! Up until now everything else you said is a lie? That's not what the person speaking means, but that is the effect those words have on a conversation. In sales this is deadly because trust is the foundation of the transaction and without trust, you cannot close the deal, I don't care how good a sales person you are.

To summarize, say what you mean: say "your welcome" when some says "thank you." Listen to what comes out of your mouth. Get rid of the repetitive statements. Think about the power of your words. Even if unintended, the meaning of the words you choose, go a long way towards the final outcome of all transactions.

Thanks for reading today


Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Networking is a Contact Sport, Don't Say it if You Don't Mean it

Recently: I've had a couple very unique experiences in my networking world and wanted to share these as two very BAD ways, to deal with people. I ascribe to the axiom that you need to be nice to everyone because you never know when you will need to deal with that person in another capacity. I have two examples to illustrate this point.
The first example happened over the course of about 3 months. In December my company joined a local chamber of commerce to help generate business in a target area. I started a campaign to introduce myself to the membership by email and phone call. The email message was started with "hello fellow chamber member" a brief description of my company and a request to meet. many people agreed to meet, many people said no and many just simply did not respond. But one response stood out to me. The response was "sorry not interested thx." and it indicated that it was sent from an iphone. In this particular case the company is a husband and wife run small business. Since the response was from a cellphone I asked if it was the husband or the wife I was speaking to since the email did not indicate either way. They responded "both." In other words don't try talking to my spouse because we don't want any. Okay, I can take a hint and I certainly am not looking to make any enemies. So I scratched them off and moved on. Here is where things get interesting, my business is to sell against Verizon and that is how I describe what my company does, "we are a Maryland based alternative to Verizon." I visited a new networking group today that is part of the chamber we joined. There was a small group of people and I struck a chord with the group because there were many questions about telephone and Internet that came up and my industry dominated the conversation. In particular, one woman was complaining how much she hates her current provider and wanted to change but couldn't because she was in a contract with them for another couple years. I asked a few more questions and gave her some sound advice to help her business. I also told her my companies product wasn't a good fit but I would be glad to review her bill for her and make some further recommendations to help. She also had a billing issue that I said I could help her straighten out as well. So who is this woman? She is the spouse that told me"sorry, not interested thx." Amazing how the people that need your help the most are often the most reluctant to reach out and ask. If you are one of these people, try to be a little more open minded the next time you get a call or email.

The second story truly has a sad ending. I spend a great deal of time looking for potential clients through linkedIn. I have gotten in many doors and won many customers because I was able to establish common ground through our mutual connections (I blogged about that previously). In fact many of them have said "normally I don't take calls like this but if you know "fill the name here" then that is good enough for me." Last week I found a small business owner  in my community and we had several mutual connections and a handful of them I consider good friends. So I called him, said who I was and what my company does. I told him I found his profile on linkedin and that we had several mutual connections. I mentioned the people I was particularly close to and he responded  to one in particular saying "you know her." and I said "yes, she is a good friend of mine. He asked if any of them were customers and I pointed out two that were and mentioned another was a business partner that has sold our services in the past. He said he wanted to make some phone calls before agreeing to meet with me and I responded I thought that was fair and would follow up in one week. I shot him a quick email to thank him for his time and said I would follow up in one week. I made a note on my calendar and moved on. A few days later I received an email from one of those mutual connections and she was outraged that I had used her name while cold calling and that in the future I should contact her first to request an introduction and if she decides that my product can help her customer then she would make the introduction. Because if I don't conduct business in this manner it could be very damaging to her reputation. I want to be clear about my relationship with this person. She was someone that I considered a very good friend. She had invited me and my family to her house for 4th of July picnics before, we would borrow movies from one another,  we had gone out to dinner and lunch together, we would leave each other silly voice-mails to make one another laugh, in short we were very good friends. I was shocked to receive this email so I reached out to the person to discuss the matter. She sent me a text message that she did not have time to chat and even if she did she would not share any further details with me & don't use her name in that capacity ever again. I lost a good friend today because they didn't understand the fundamentals of what true networking is.

In summary: you never know who you are dealing with so be nice to everyone & networking at it's core is about building strong relationships, it's not a one way street.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.